Sophie Gay

Marie Françoise Sophie Gay (born Nichault de la Valette; 1 July 1776 – 2 March 1852) was a French author who was born in Paris. Biography Marie Françoise Sophie Nichault de la Vallette was the child of Francesca Peretti, an Italian woman and of Auguste Antoine Nichault de la Vallette, an entrepreneur who worked for King Louis XVIII. She was married in 1794 to Gaspard Liottier (or Gaspar Liottier). She divorced in 1799 to marry another, Jean Sigismond Gay (1768–1822), the mayor of Lupigny, originally from Aix-les-Bains and with a close association to the French treasury, under the French First Empire. He was the contrôleur-général for the Ruhr. She published her first written work in 1802, defending the art of the novel. Delphine by Germaine de Staël, wrote an open letter to the Journal de Paris. That year her first published work, the novel Laure d’Estell, was anonymously published, on the advice of her publisher Sir Stanislas de Boufflers and Joseph-Alexandre Pierre de Ségur, Viscount of Ségur. Legacy Gay was the mother of the writer Delphine de Girardin, and her son-in-law married the chanteuse Sophie Gail. In 1818 she wrote the libretto for the opéra comique la Sérénade by Regnard, which Sophie Gail set to music. In 1821, she was working on Chanoine de Milan by Alexandre Duval, and a comic opera entitled le Maitre de Chapelle ("Master of the House", not to be confused with Master of the House from Les Misérables (musical)). In the meantime, Gay was also writing many others comedies and dramas. The comedy la Veuve du tanneur ("The widow of the tanner"), was a huge success at the Castellane, but the Duchesse de Châteauroux bombed at the Théâtre de l'Odéon. She also wrote several "novel novels", Nouvelles nouvelles, as penny dreadfuls, for La Presse.